by Doctor Who
Bravely – or stupidly – Kaylen decided to investigate rather than get help. As she got closer to the point of impact she found a scene of total devastation. Something had torn through the forest, uprooting trees and scorching vegetation, leaving an ugly scar. Eventually it had torn a groove into the ground itself, a deepening channel that was still smoking as Kaylen gingerly followed it. Finally she reached the object itself.
It was smaller than she’d expected, not much bigger than her father: a metal egg, blackened and burnt after the rapid descent. Kaylen had never seen anything like it before in all her six years. Despite her fears, she crept closer. She was trying to remember the stories that Brother Hugan was always telling the children, about the old days when Laylora’s guardians would stalk the land. Was it possible that the Witiku were born from metal eggs like the one in front of her? Brother Hugan said that the Witiku would return if they were needed. But the Witiku only attacked to protect Laylora, didn’t they?
Kaylen was sure she had done nothing to upset her planet. Her mother maybe, but not the planet!
Hardly daring to breathe, Kaylen reached the object. It was steaming hot; the air above it rippled in an intense heat haze. Suddenly there was a hiss of escaping air and a hatch began to open. Kaylen jumped back, alarmed and scared, and for a moment she considered 11
running away. But something stopped her in her tracks. It was a sound from inside the metal egg, a sort of gurgling.
Forcing herself to turn back, Kaylen walked right up to the hatch, which had now opened fully, and looked inside. She could see some sort of bed, and strapped securely into it was the thing that was responsible for making the strange new noise. Kaylen could hardly believe her eyes. A moment ago she had been scared to within an inch of her life, but now she felt all that fear melting away and she began to laugh with surprise and delight. The creature inside the egg began to laugh as well, chuckling with pleasure in response to Kaylen’s smiling face. This was no monster from myth and legend; this was a tiny, vulnerable creature that needed her. Small and helpless, with chubby little arms and chubby little legs, it was a baby!
That had been fifteen years ago. Now that baby was glaring at her and asking her to take the shaman’s ritual seriously. Kaylen smiled at the thought of it. Rez had grown into a handsome young man, fit and tanned, and taller than most of the Laylorans he lived among. Kaylen had grown up too; she was now an attractive young woman with a fierce intelligence and a wicked sense of humour. Despite the six-year age gap between them, the Layloran and her stepbrother were very close. It was because of Rez that Kaylen found herself here today, in the ancient temple, trying not to laugh at the shaman.
It seemed to Kaylen that the years had not been kind to poor Brother Hugan. When she was a child, she had been terrified of the shaman and everything he stood for, but now all that had changed. He cut a rather sad and pathetic figure, dressed up in his bright robes and his mylan-feather headdress. His face was painted with streaks of colour that were meant to make him look fierce, but to her he simply looked silly. Underneath the carnival costume and the make-up, Brother Hugan was just another old Layloran, one in the twilight years of his life, who had a sad obsession with the way things used to be.
Although the modern Laylorans inhabited a tented village, living off the land in harmony with the seasons, their more primitive ancestors had enjoyed a different relationship with the world. The ancients 12
had worshipped Laylora as a goddess and their religious rites had included blood sacrifice. Brother Hugan spent hours in the ancient temple, studying the old ways, seeking opportunities to revive some of the less objectionable aspects of their practices in accordance with tribal history. It was an uphill battle with the younger generation, though. Kaylen and her contemporaries, although still respectful of the natural order of things, were less inclined to see the planet as a living deity.
Ironically it was Rez, the outsider, who had most time for Brother Hugan and his stories of the old ways. Perhaps it was because, as he grew older, he became more aware of the things that set him apart from the others – the differences between his physical form and that of the Laylorans – and sought a way to integrate himself more closely with the tribe. So when other young Laylorans poked fun at the shaman and ignored his stories, Brother Rez took it all in.
And where Brother Rez went, Sister Kaylen went too.
When
her niece, nephew and Aerack disappeared, Brother Hugan had announced that they would need to make an offering to Laylora at the ancient temple. Rez had immediately volunteered himself and, of course, his stepsister to assist in the ritual.
Kaylen looked up and realised with a start that the shaman was walking towards her. She tried to arrange her features into a suitably serious expression but found it a struggle.
‘Sister Kaylen, will you assist me with the jinnera?’
Kaylen nodded and crossed to the fire that was burning in a grate in the corner of the room. A kettle of liquid was bubbling away, suspended from a frame. Kaylen carefully removed the kettle and poured the thick brown liquid into three ancient carved wooden cups. The three of them took a cup each and approached the sacred altar, behind which a statue of a woman – an incarnation of Laylora – stood.
The jinnera, a drink made using the jinnen beans that grew so abundantly in the jungle, had a sharp, slightly bitter taste that was unpleasant at first but quickly became addictive. Kaylen could smell the exotic aroma wafting up from the cup and hoped the bit in the ceremony where they drank it on behalf of Laylora was coming soon.
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But Brother Hugan seemed to have other ideas. He stepped forward to the altar and placed his cup down between himself and the statue.
He nodded at Rez and at Kaylen to do the same. A moment after they had placed their own cups on the altar, the shaman raised his arms high in the air and threw his head back.
‘O mighty Laylora, the provider of all, we your humble servants ask for your kindness. . . ’
Kaylen closed her eyes – this sounded as if it might go on for a long time. And it did. It seemed that Brother Hugan wanted to name-check every fruit, nut and leaf that the generous Laylora had provided for her chosen people. Kaylen opened her eyes to see what was going on and found herself looking down into her cup at the jinnera she desperately wanted to drink. But there was something wrong. The surface of the liquid was vibrating. No – not just the liquid; the cup itself was shaking and moving!
‘Brother Hugan. . . ’ she began, but her companions were already aware that something odd was happening.
The very ground itself was rumbling. Suddenly Kaylen found herself staggering as the earth beneath her feet moved, spilling her precious drink. Now the whole temple was shaking and parts of the ancient walls were breaking free and falling all around them. She remembered the stories she had been told as a child, of how Laylora had shaken them out of living in buildings like these to pursue a more nomadic lifestyle.
‘What is it?’ Rez asked his stepsister, as he tried to pull her a safe distance from the walls, but it was the shaman who answered him.
‘It’s Laylora – she’s angry with us!’ he ventured.
At that moment it was easy to believe. Everything was wrong. The temple that had seemed so solid and permanent was shaking like one of their tents in a winter storm. Laylora was a world of peace and limitless bounty – why was it turning on them like this? Kaylen could see that Rez was as scared as she was, but Brother Hugan was just angry. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was all over. The ground beneath their feet felt solid again.
‘I don’t understand,’ she complained. ‘Why is Laylora angry?’
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Brother Hugan shook his head. ‘It’s another sign. Like everything else. That’s why those three youngsters have disappeared. Laylora is angry and we will all perish in her wrath!’
He turned on his heels and stalked off, leaving the ritual unfinished and the spilt jinnera offering pooling on the gro
und.
The mood on the bridge of the spaceship was tense, to say the least.
The Humphrey Bogart was entering the outer reaches of a solar system but it was not a straightforward approach. In fact it was a veritable minefield. A massive cloud of meteorites and planetary debris made an almost impenetrable barrier protecting the five planets closest to the system’s class-three star. As soon as it became clear that some very fine piloting would be required if the ship was to pass through this belt unscathed, young Hespell had relinquished the helm to the captain. Major Kendle was Professor Shulough’s right-hand man. Like the ship, the major had seen action in wartime and bore the physical and mental scars to prove it. He was in his late sixties now, still fit but long since retired from military service.
Hespell looked on in awe as the veteran space marine steered the ship manually, his eyes fixed on the screen. He knew the older man had been trained to stay cool under fire but this was something else.
With a light touch on the navigational controls and hardly looking at the instruments at all, he was displaying the sort of old-fashioned, seat-of-your-pants flying that the academy just couldn’t teach. Kendle had nerves of steel and the reflexes of a panther – a winning combination. Nevertheless, Hespell found he had to remind himself to breathe as he watched their slow forward progress.
He looked around the bridge and saw that the rest of the crew were reacting in the same way. At the communications console even Jae Collins, whose perpetual air of boredom always rankled with Hespell, seemed tense. Jae looked about eighteen but was a few years older than that, which made him about the same age as Hespell. However, the two men could not have been more different. Hespell worked hard and obeyed the rules; Jae – born to a family of intergalactic lawyers –had never had to work for a credit in his life and believed rules were 15
merely there to be broken. Hespell couldn’t quite work out why Jae had volunteered for this mission. Perhaps he had expected it to be more exciting. Well, it was certainly getting exciting now.
The final member of the crew sat beside Hespell at the navigational and ship management consoles. Hespell let his gaze linger on Ania Baker for a second and then had to look away quickly, turning red, when she shot a little sideways glance at him. The pretty, petite brunette with the round, open face looked as fragile as a porcelain doll, but he knew she was a tough cookie underneath. Ania had been a cadet with him at the academy, but he had never managed to speak to her in his five years there. On board the Humphrey Bogart they had finally become friends. Beneath her calm exterior, he was pretty sure, she would be feeling the same tension they all were.
All of them with one exception, that is. At the back of the crew, Professor Shulough was leaning against the wall, sipping from a mug of coffee, looking utterly relaxed. It was amazing. Hespell wasn’t sure exactly how long the professor had been searching for this mysterious planet, but he knew it was a matter of years not months. How could she be so cool now that they were on the verge of finding the holy grail she had been searching for all this time? Looking at the professor calmly finishing her drink, the young pilot wondered if she was quite human.
‘Professor, we’re through!’
Kendle’s speech was a low growl at the best of times, but even Hespell could hear the relief in his voice. On the main screen the third planet of the star system could now be seen in all its glory. And it was glorious – a beautiful green-blue gem of a planet. Was this really the fabled Paradise Planet?
Without warning the ship suddenly shook violently. The horizontal became vertical as the ship’s internal gravity generator went off-line.
Every console and every instrument fell dark. Screams filled the air as the crew members, none of whom were strapped into their seats, were thrown around the room. Then the spacecraft began to spin.
‘Are we under attack?’
It was the professor from somewhere over his shoulder. Hespell 16
hoped she’d managed to grab hold of something when whatever it was had hit them.
‘Some kind of EMP,’ came the calming tones of Kendle.
An electromagnetic pulse? Hespell was amazed – it would have had to be enormously powerful to break through their shields and cause such a total shutdown.
‘Electrical power is out. The emergency generators are coming on-line but we can’t reboot all the systems at the same time.’
‘Life support?’
‘Priority number one. Then defence shields and engines. But we’re caught up in the gravity well of the planet. I can’t maintain this orbit.’
‘We’ll have to try and land, then. . . ’
‘It might be a bumpy ride. . . Hold on. . . ’
The next few moments were among the most frightening and yet exhilarating that Hespell had ever experienced. In the emergency red lighting that flooded the bridge, the crew responded professionally to the crisis, setting in motion the routines they had practised in every training drill. Each of them had specific crash-landing duties. Even cool Jae Collins seemed scared for once, as he too responded to the emergency. And in the middle of all the activity, there was Major Kendle wrestling with the steering controls, trying to ensure that their descent into the planet’s atmosphere was at a safe angle. A few degrees out and the ship would burn up before it even had a chance to crash.
While the major struggled to save their lives, Hespell set about his own emergency task, which was to launch a distress beacon. If the crash-landing went badly, this might be their only hope of rescue.
Battery-powered, it would send out a looped SOS signal into deep space. As Hespell launched the beacon, he couldn’t help crossing his fingers for luck. He knew they would need it; their search for the Paradise Planet had taken them far from the busy space lanes and more populated areas of space. Was anybody likely to hear their cry for help?
∗ ∗ ∗
17
Leaving Rez at the temple to help clear up after the earth tremor once Brother Hugan had abandoned them, Kaylen hurried back through the forest alone. She wanted to make sure everyone in the village had survived. Having seen the devastation at the temple, she was worried that the tents would have been utterly destroyed.
In her haste, she was running without really looking where she was putting her feet. Twigs and vines slapped her legs and face as she hurtled through the forest, but she didn’t let that slow her down.
Although she didn’t believe in Brother Hugan’s talk of disaster, she couldn’t help wondering if perhaps the old man was right after all.
Perhaps something bad was coming.
Suddenly her foot caught on a root and she found herself flying forward. Kaylen hit the ground awkwardly and winded herself. As she lay on her back for a second, trying to catch her breath, she heard a noise that she had heard just once before. A resounding boom echoed around the sky, sending thousands of birds squawking into the air in panicky flight. She looked up and was not disappointed. It was happening again. . . just like before. Ugly black smoke was scrawled across the sky. Something was coming. Something alien.
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Rose watched as the Doctor hurried from panel to panel of the TARDIS console, tweaking settings, flicking switches and tapping the odd read-out. This was one of her favourite parts of time and space travel: the last minutes inside the ship before stepping out into. . . who knew what. The past, the future, sideways into another universe – every time Rose opened those doors she could be certain that the TARDIS had landed somewhere new, exciting and different.
Even the time it had taken them to Clacton. In the winter. Even that had been fun – once they had managed to persuade the Italian ice cream man to open up his shop and they’d been able to walk along the beach eating 99s in the persistent drizzle.
Rose wondered idly what might be outside this time when she walked out of the police box doors. Disturbing her reverie, without warning, the TARDIS shuddered and jerked violently, sending her flying. The console room was filled with an urgent screeching alarm Rose
couldn’t remember hearing before.
‘What is it?’ she asked, getting to her feet gingerly, once the worst of the lurching seemed to be over.
‘Alarm of some kind,’ came the answer, as the Doctor’s hands moved with amazing speed over the controls, trying to locate the source.
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‘I sorta knew that,’ said Rose, ‘but what kind? Red alert? Mauve?
Orange? Is something up with the TARDIS?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, it’s not one of ours.’ A quick grin.
‘Not this time!’ He slammed down a lever and the noise abruptly ceased.
‘It’s gone!’ Rose observed, but the Doctor was still dancing around the multi-sided control console, deep in concentration.
‘I just turned the volume down. Can’t hear yourself think with that going on, can you?’
The Doctor was now looking at the computer screen, on which pages of data were streaming by at an astonishing rate. Rose moved closer but things were, as usual, meaningless to her. Although the TARDIS could translate any spoken or written language for her, it never seemed to want to help her read the Doctor’s peculiar script of curves and circles.
‘It’s an intergalactic mayday. . . A star ship is in trouble.’
‘Can we help?’ Rose was sure the Doctor would be able to do something. Like an intergalactic AA man. The thought of the Doctor dressed in a bright yellow jacket made her smile.
‘I’m reconnecting the directional controls.’ Again the Doctor’s hands flashed over the console. ‘I promised you a magical mystery tour this time. . . and you’re going to get one.’
The TARDIS engines shifted into a new gear – a sound Rose knew meant that they were about to arrive somewhere.
On the planet’s surface, in the area of Laylora inhabited by the Tribe of the Three Valleys, a sudden wind whipped up from nowhere. The few birds that had returned to the tree tops, having been frightened away by the sonic boom of the crashing spaceship, were now spooked for a second time. Accompanied by a tremendous rasping sound, a blue box appeared, faint at first, but rapidly becoming solid. With a final thump, the TARDIS finished its arrival. A moment later the doors opened and Rose appeared, wide-eyed and intrigued to discover where they had landed now.